I am a writer and editor living and working in New York City. I am Editor of the Roosevelt Institute's Next New Deal blog and my writing has appeared on The Nation, The Atlantic, GOOD Magazine, AlterNet, and others. From women's issues to wonking out, I'm always looking for the stories that can shape the debate. Previously, I was a financial reporter and head of the energy sector at mergermarket, a newswire that is part of the Financial Times Group. Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/brycecovert.

Why The Obamacare Decision Is Very Good News For Women

SCOTUS has spoken: The U.S. Supreme Court just upheld the Affordable Care Act, saying that the individual mandate is constitutional as a tax. This is fantastic news for the nearly 50 million uninsured Americans.

Women in particular should pop the champagne and celebrate. Of those millions of uninsured, 19 million are women. Up to 10.3 million of the low-income among them will now be covered by Medicaid by 2014 when the law goes into full effect. Although the uninsured tend to use less medical care, and therefore spend less than the insured, altogether they spend about $2.64 billion out of pocket each year. (Not to mention that being uninsured leads to a greater risk of death.) They can rest assured that the Supreme Court won’t get in the way of their insurance coverage, which should mean more accessible and affordable care.

Women are big financial winners in this decision in other ways. The first is the elimination of gender rating, or charging women more because they’re women, pure and simple. The National Women’s Law Center recently found that in states that haven’t banned the practice, over 90% of the best selling plans charge women more than men, even though only 3% of them cover maternity services. In fact, even when maternity care is excluded, almost a third of plans charge women at least 30% more than men for the same coverage. One plan even charges 25-year-old women 85% more than men. All told, the practice costs women about $1 billion a year.

That will now become illegal in 2014, after the ACA is fully implemented. Insurers will no longer have free reign to charge women whatever they like for no discernable reason. That extra $1 billion in our pockets sounds pretty good.

Had the individual mandate been struck down, as many assumed would happen, women could have been the first victims. Premium rates would have almost surely risen – read Sarah Kliff’s great account of what happened under an incredibly similar scenario in Washington State not too long ago for empirical evidence. There were many estimates of how much premiums would have risen without the mandate: The RAND Corporation predicted that they would rise by 9.3 percent ; the Urban Institute estimated a 10 percent rise; the CBO put it far higher, at 15-27 percent. Even with RAND’s lower estimate, it anticipated the average premium to rise by $534. Given that women are targeted for gender rating, their costs would have very likely risen faster than others’. The Supreme Court’s decision offers protection from this scenario.

On top of all this, much of women’s preventative care, including contraception, Pap test, mammograms, and domestic violence screenings, will be covered without copay. An 18-year-old woman can expect to shell out $11,842 over her lifetime in copays for hormonal birth control and mandated doctor’s visits, but now she can put that money in her pocket next to the money saved from gender rating and medical expenses.

Women also have a long history of being denied care because of preexisting conditions, including some dubious so-called “conditions.” Think that pregnancy is a normal course of life? Insurance companies have been known to treat women who seek coverage when they’re pregnant as if they have a preexisting condition. Even women who gave birth through previous Caesarean section – about a third of all births – are thought to have a “condition.” Think the victims of sexual abuse and assault have enough to deal with as it is? Add to their burdens the denial of coverage because receiving treatment related to that abuse has been considered a preexisting condition. Now that the ACA is free to stand, that practice will no longer be tolerated, either.

Other gains women will make now that health care reform will stay on the books: Maternity care is a required coverage area. Meanwhile, nursing mothers will be given mandated breaks and a private place to express breast milk at places of employment that have 50 employees or more.

While it’s clearly a moral imperative that we give as many Americans access to quality, affordable health care, it’s also a financial issue for millions of women. With the Supreme Court’s affirmation of the Affordable Care Act, they stand to see a big boost to their bottom lines. They can rest easier today knowing that their health care costs will be lower for years to come.

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You won’t be paying higher taxes after the law is implemented unless you fail to get insurance (at which point you have to pay a penalty) or you use a tanning salon. In fact, there are numerous tax credits that come with the bill. See: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=220809,00.html Most people’s costs will stay the same or go down.

So, now that gov’t controls health care market, what happens when right wingers own DC as they will sooner or later? If gov’t stays out of health market (fat chance) you, and no one else, control your health care. I don’t think you’re going to like this as much as you think. Women’s health care and lifestyle choices will be curtailed by majority opinion. I hate that for my sake and for the sake of the women in my life.

Also see Bill Whittle’s clear, succinct analysis of the consequences of assuming that health care is a right. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S9dwP-fV3o&feature=youtu.be

Wow, I never expected to see such a nasty sexist comment on Forbes. Interestingly he seems unwilling to post his full name (@Sharm).

That of course has nothing to do with my comment but perhaps indirectly it does. I’m very happy about all of the positive changes that will benefit women. For too long, in business, in healthcare, in just about every area of life what is “normal” is specifically male and what is different is everything else and therefore not to be taken seriously. Since women are technically a majority in this country it stands to reason that what effects women effects everyone. Proper healthcare and fair treatment means improved productivity at work (improvements as a caregiver as well). How can this be bad, ever?